Connected

It's Saturday today, and for the first time in a long time, I decided to allow myself a lazy morning.  No plans, no place to be, no one to be accountable to.  Just slept in (only managed until 8:30--but still better than 7:00).

Yesterday was a big day for David & me in three small but significant ways.  1) David got his ARC (alien registration card) and is now a fully functioning legal resident in the ROK. 2) With his ARC, David could be registered with the National Health Insurance and is now insured (yah!) and 3) we finally could sign up for phones and are once again reachable at all times, like the rest of Korean society.

Without speaking more than a few Korean words, David and I were able to do all those things listed above in a single afternoon.  KT (Korean Telecom) has a whole series of sites, hotlines and global centers which were created for their expat and non-Korean customers, with English speaking help and representatives available.   While I'm thoroughly impressed and grateful for the fact that exists, nothing like that was promised when we arrived at the Insurance office, so I was kind of nervous about how that was going to turn out.

It almost didn't happen when the guy saw this seal (see below)

The seal (or the city?) that almost messed everything up.

because he'd never heard of Nuremberg, so he told us we'd have to have the document translated into Korean. Despite it being an international certificate, it apparently was not 'international enough'  Luckily, one of his colleagues must have Googled or Navered it and decided it was legit and we could get it all taken care of in one afternoon.  (A million thanks to the employees there who proactively tried to help us out, even though we couldn't speak Korean... you guys are awesome.)

And tomorrow is our trip to Jeonju via free shuttle thanks to Visit Korea Year.  Excited to go to the food capital of Korea^^.  Until next post.